Since Emmalynn was 11 months old, she has loved Disney. In fact, I tried to keep Mickey + Minnie away from her for the longest time. However, one day when we were at the mall we decided to go into the Disney store and all of a sudden Emma grabs a Pink Minne Mouse and that was the end of that. Since that day, Emma has loved Disney.

Until recently, she took Minnie and Mickey everywhere. Usually it was more about Minnie than Mickey, but eventually she started to love Mickey just as much. When I say that she took them everywhere, I mean she took 5-6 of them everywhere! It was something that we never thought would go away and although she doesn't take them everywhere with her now, her love for them will NEVER go away.

That brings me to something pretty awesome and that is a trip to Disney! Who doesn't like Disney enough to go and visit Disney World? I don't think I have actually met anyone who wouldn't love to go to Disney one day in their lives.

I would love to take Emmalynn and Will to Disney and I have a chance to earn a trip for FREE! Yes, you read that correctly. I can earn a TRIP TO DISNEY FOR FREE, but I need your help. Earning this trip would mean the world to Emmalynn and Disney has some amazing programs for those with Special Needs and Autism, so it would be a great trip for our family.

As a Designer for KEEP Collective (a personalized jewelry company) I have a chance to earn a trip to Disney. From now until the 31st of August I will be working hard to earn this trip so that I can take Emmalynn to Disney because yesterday she said to us "Emmalynn wants to go to Disney!". In order to earn this trip to Disney, I need your help! I am looking for ladies to host online or in person Design Sessions (parties). This is the best way for me earn my trip as it will be more of chance to get orders to earn the trip. If you are unable to host a design session, but would love to place an order to help us earn this trip; we would love you forever!

Will you help me take Emmalynn to Disney for free? If so please contact me and I would love to get you set up with a Design Session or help you Design an awesome personalized KEEP that you can keep near and dear to your heart!

There is one last thing I would like to mention about KEEP Collective is that as of tomorrow we will have a Disney Line! That is right tomorrow July 18, 2017 KEEP Collective is launching their Disney Line. I am super excited for this new line from KEEP because it is something that Emmalynn is going to just LOVE. So, who is willing to help me earn this trip to Disney?

Your can head on over to my website to check it out as well! http://www.keepcollective.com/with/tiffanyringrose

Thank you so much for helping me earn this trip to Disney for Emmalynn! <3

It has been a long time since I last wrote about Emmalynn and her Journey, but I am going to try and make this a much more weekly thing as she just grows so quickly! However, lately I have been thinking about getting her a new blog (yes I know another one), but this time it would be her very own (for Emmalynn's Journey) and it will not be connected to my Business Blog at all (that's a plus right!). I've also been thinking about starting a Facebook Group or even a Facebook Page for her, but I am not sure what your thoughts are on that one. Would you guys join? Would it make it easier for her updates? Right now we have an Emmalynn's Journey Instagram, so if you have one make sure you follow us, but not everyone has one of those. So thoughts on a facebook group or page?

Anyways, let's talk about why I am writing today. I am writing today about Rocks 4 Autism, actually this is something that I came up with when I was writing the first blog post (the one that I accidentally erased) and thought it was pretty awesome! Rocks 4 Autism comes from that awesome new Rock Trend that is happening. (If you haven't heard of it, click here)

I wanted to try it out with the kids to see how Emmalynn would do with it. I wanted to get her active and get us out as a family (even during ABA works for me because its a free activity). So, I went on a rock hunt so that the kids could pain the rocks and I found some pretty awesome rocks. Emmalynn had a blast paining and didn't even want stop, but she had painted all 15 of the rocks I brought home!

After getting her to let the rocks dry, we were able to head to the library and hide one. We actually hid one that I painted because it was actually dry, unlike theirs. We hid the rock at the West Bloomfield Library and after checking out some books (because the kids love the library) we went for a walk. Although we were only able to find rock, we are excited to hide it again!

Today I had another great idea and that was to put "Emmalynn's Journey" on the back of the rocks instead of "Southeast MI Rock, Oakland County Rocks, or another group I am in" because this to be would start to get people wondering what "Emmalynn's Journey" was. So, with them wanting to know, they will start some research on Google and Facebook and that is when they would find our page. Our page would lead them to Autism and Awareness and will show the journey of an autistic toddler girl! Pretty awesome right? It will show that not every child, including girls are the same (that is my goal here). Each child has their own journey, and this is Emmalynn's!

So, who is with us here? Who is ready to do some Rocks 4 Autism? We are ready to spread fun, joy and awareness for Autism are you?

As an special needs mom, life tends to slip by very quickly. I can't believe that it has been almost a month and a half since I last gave an update on Emmalynn. I promise I did not intend to wait this long, but with the holiday season everything just seemed to go by so fast. I feel like this year all of the holiday's went by so fast and honestly I wish we had more of them to celebrate.

This year I learned how much Emmalynn loves Christmas. In fact, we are 4 days into 2017 and Emmalynn is still talk about Christmas. She is talking about the "ringing bells" that Grandma + Grandpa had in their driveway. I think this is something she maybe talking about until next December when they put these bells back up for the holidays.

Besides the holidays, we got to enjoy Emmalynn's 4th birthday. Can you believe that she is 4, I know I can't! Where did my little baby go? She has grown up to be such an awesome sweet little girl and a smart one at that. This year we did things a little differently as she didn't take well to her brother's birthday party. Instead we held two separate gatherings where we basically just had fun with cake and presents.

The first "party" was a week before her birthday and although it sounds crazy we did a 9am cookie decorating day! Emmalynn had so much fun decorating her cookies + the awesome Tsum Tsum cake that grandma made her.

Cake by Gayle Ringrose. Sprinkles by Emmalynn

The second get together was with the Lancaster side, but sadly we were all over the place and there were no pictures taken. I can promise you that she had tons of fun and was in love with her presents. Grandma Lancaster got her Tom Cat and if you know Emmalynn then you know this was the world to her.

With the new year, I plan to take a lot more photos of Emmalynn (Will too!) as well as blogging a lot more. It is important that I keep everyone up to date on her progress, plus I love share everything that she is achieving!

Before I sign off for the evening, I do want to mention that I did make it a goal to finally complete a Project 365. So far I am 4 days in and I am doing amazing. I wanted to mention this because Emmalynn is one of my main focus' as I want to show the everyday life of a child with Austim. Head on over and check it out!

Can you believe that it has been 1 year since we first took Emmalynn in for "behavior issues"? Although we took her in for behavior issues, were knew something else was wrong. Our gut told us it as Autism, but we didn't want to believe it. There were so many signs from about 18 months, but we were honestly in denial. We didn't want our baby girl to have any problems growing up, but we also knew that if we didn't get her the help she needed; then there was no way she would grow. We all knew she was a smart girl, but she had some gaps that we needed to address.

Image By: Tiffany Ringrose Photography

Forward a year later and Emmalynn is a whole different girl. She is someone that at one point we didn't think would ever exist. 1 year ago she was basically non verbal and now shes is full of words. 1 year ago her behaviors were off the wall with self harm and harm to other and now we hardly see them. 1 year ago she wouldn't interact with ANYONE but mommy, dad, grandma and grandpa, but now she is such social-able little girl and we love it.

This past year has been filled with a lot of downs, but it has been filled with way more ups than anyone can possible think. We have learned her weakness and her strengths and have learned how to handle those. We have learned so much as her as a person and about Autism in general. We have learned how to take care of her when she is unable to express to us what she wants or she needs.

The best thing is, this only took us 1 year to go from basically non verbal and shelf harm to a super smart verbal almost non existing self harm. It's been a long year, but it has been worth it.